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Sunday, April 20, 2014

Fight for the Supplies

On Saturday, April 19, 2014, the Jackson Gamers met at Jay's house for a Very British Civil War game run by Col Campbell. We used the "Went the DayWell?" rules for the first time. Each of the four players had a unit of 35 figures or so, plus three of them had support weapons.

The Royalists and British Union of Fascists were led, respectively, by John M. and Jay. Each unit had a headquarters element of 5 figures, three 10-man rifle sections, and a heavy machinegun team. Two of the Royalist sections included a 2-man Lewis gun team. The BUF Bolton Rifles had a rifle grenadier in the headquarters and one in the third rifle section.

The East Bergholt local forces were led by Ed S. He had a five person headquarters section and three "rifle" sections -- East Bergholt Hunt Club of 10 men including a Lewis gun team, the East Berholt Constabulary of 8 men, and the Squire's retainers (10 men). Allied with them were a unit of the Harwich Maritime Defence Force (revolutionary sailors) led by Sean P. He had a 5-man headquarters element, three 10-man rifle sections, and a truck mounted naval gun with 4 crewmen.

Both sides were after the supplies scattered about after a goods wagon had derailed on the rail line between Colchester and Ipswich near Manningtree and the River Stour.

The battlefield looking from the southeast. The Royalists and Bolton Rifles will be entering from the table edge to the left; the East Bergholt forces from the far corner where the road disappears; and the Harwich sailors from the right side of the picture. The derailed goods wagon is in the center. Unfortunately I put too much restrictive terrain along the stream and that impeded the Harwich sailors movement too much.

The battlefield from the northwest. The East Bergholt forces will enter from the closer road while the Royalists and Bolton Rifles will come in from across the board where the gray troop box is. The Harwich sailors will enter from the far left corner. The terrain on this side of the table was much more open which aided the Royalists as you will see from future pictures.

The derailed goods wagon with supplies scattered around it. You'll notice that there are some green colored petrol drums in the mix. Gotta be careful and not hit them with a rifle grenade or a machinegun burst!
The rail car is from a set I purchased a number of years ago. I still need to do some painting and detailing of it for future use as those red road wheels just aren't going to work!

The BUF Bolton Rifles advance towards the goods wagon. Closest are two rifle sections. In the distance are the headquarters element, heavy machinegun team, and other rifle section. The Royalists are beyond the railroad tracks.

In the distance, the East Berholt local forces begin their advance. On the left are the members of the East Bergholt Hunt Club including a Lewis gun team. In the center are the Squire's headquarters element (himself, his wife and daughter, his brother, and the Squire's Ghurkha batman) and the East bergholt Constabulary. Behind the trees on the right are the Squire's retainers.

Sean P., the Harwich Maritime Defence Force commander, shows his colors with his red shirt - how appropriate!
His sailors are advancing along both sides of the road with the gun truck on the road.

The Bolton Rifles approach the scattered supplies and exchange fire with the Squire's retainers. The background the Royalists begin to outflank the East Bergholt Hunt Club.

The Constabulary try to get into the woods before the Royalists. On the right, the Squire moves behind the wall to put his wife and brother out of the fire after loosing his daughter and his batman to BUF fire.

Looking from behind the Royalists as they attack the hunt club. The Royalist Vickers gun on the left has just been set up and is awaiting a clear field of fire.

The Bolton Rifles left flank section also trades fire with the Squire's retainers. between them and their comrades on the far side of the woods, including a Maxim machinegun team, slowly attrite the retainers.

The Harwich naval gun truck has slewed around in the road and trained on the BUF. Unfortunately their first shot was wild and they didn't hit anything.

A section of the Bolton Rifles shelters behind a fence and opens fire on the advancing sailors and the naval gun truck. Behind them you can see the BUF Maxim machinegun team set-up on the railroad tracks.

And quickly put paid to the naval gunners - killing first one, then the other three with some lucky shots. Needless to say, Sean was very discouraged about this turn of events.

In final actions, the Royalists bring two rifle sections, one with a Lewis gun, and the Vickers heavy machinegun against the hunt club. They quickly blast them into oblivion, forcing the remaining members to scamper away.

This ended the action since the Squire decided that to run away and live to fight another day was the best course of action. With the East Bergholt ﻿forces withdrawing, the Harwich Maritime Defence Force decided that they couldn't make any further progress either, especially with the loss of their gun crew. So they also announced their withdrawal back to Harwich. This left the Royalists and BUF in control of all of the supplies. Minus, that is a petrol drum that had been punctured by a stray shot but didn't catch fire or explode.

Rules comments: This was the first time we had used "Went the Day Well?" rules. It was rather slow going, especially with the sequencing and adjudicating the weapons fire. We never got to a melee, perhaps fortunately since I'm still not sure I understand all that is supposed to happen with hand-to-hand combat. I'm sure we missed things as we proceeded.

Both sides closed at the run of the first two turns so I limited them to walking for another two turns before they could run again. I think we played a total of five or six turns before the local forces were so understrength that they couldn't continue.